Martinez Mountain

8 February 1969

By: Les Stockton

Leader: Les Stockton
Asst.: Ken Ferrell

At 3:30 p.m. after ascending Martinez and locating the assistant leader of that climb, 12 peakbaggers took off cross country to Sheep Mountain while the main body hit the trail to the campground. As time was running out, we wasted little time in reaching the peak where we enjoyed the view, drank most of our water and checked out our return route carefully as darkness would soon be upon us. We descended down deep canyons and fortunately reached the trail just prior to darkness. Using our limited number of flashlights (Why don't we always carry the 10 essentials?), we made only one stop. As we were nearing the cars, John Isaac felt uneasy walking along with his hands in his pockets and suddenly realized that he should have been carrying an ice ax in one of them. He had left it at the river (?) crossing, when we stopped for water. (Please return if you find it.) We reached the cars at 7:30 p.m., a short time after the main group. Without removing her pack, Vicky Duerr was asleep in the backseat before we could drive out and remained in that condition until we reached the San Gorgonio Inn where our energies were restored.

We were quite pleased with our exploit of accomplishing in one short day the normal two-day Martinez and Sheep trip, until the leader recalled that an eight-year-old boy accompanied us all the way!